Dusty Water?

[waterdrop]

Yes, I'm talking about, say, 40 to 80% water changes that you might do sometimes to thoroughly clean your gravel. With large changes like that it is safer to roughly temperature match. With small water changes like 30% I think you'd find a before/after temp check would be 2 degrees or less - sensitivity to temp shock varies wildly, many fish really liking the variation whereas others in new situations or not doing well for some reason can really take a hit from it.

And in your case it sounds like you may have found an avenue to improvement in that the gravel and filters seemed to need cleaning - so good sized changes should be a good thing for getting to clearer water.

There's nothing wrong with 40ppm nitrates (there may be a few fish like GBRs that won't like this but for the vast majority it should be fine.) And you can definately check with your local water authority about the chlorine. If they still use chlorine and not chloramines then you can just gas the chlorine out overnight and not have to use conditioner. On the other hand, concentrated conditioner like Prime is a really cheap insurance (when a water authority switches to using chloramines they often don't tell you, or you don't see the announcement) if you have fish that you really care about or are valuable.

It doesn't matter at what point you add the conditioner (it acts within seconds) but of course it's ideal if it's before the exposure to fish, plants and filter bacteria. Note that in large, mature tanks people sometimes eventually choose not to continue using conditioner on 25% or less water changes because the exposure is so diluted and they have stable fish and mature filters. Most of us still think it's cheap insurance.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[audia4]

Thanks for all the advice there waterdrop. all sounds like good news to me. yes the large water change and filter cleaning i did yesterday helped, so yes, im on the right track.

With regards to the water authority, i found a report for my area, which confirms what i found, nitrates at 30ppm they say. but i do not see any evidence of chlorine, maybe i have missed it, but i did look for it. do they necessarily have to have chlorine or not?

And yes, I also use seachem prime regardless, its a small price to pay really to keep things in balance/check.

I think i may do 2 20% weekly changes instead of a large one, reason being is, becasue my tank is situated in basement level, i do not have water access down there and would have to go up down the stairs with buckets, which i dont do, so i use a drum on the upper level and use gravity to feed the water to the tank over a 30min or so period, as to allow the water to slowly heat up in the tank as it enters, as to not shock the fish too much with a big temp change. reason for the smaller 20% changes is, if i leave the water overnight, it will cool down and then i cant heat it up, so smaller chanegs will have smaller impact in temp overall.

Does this all sound ok?

 

[waterdrop]

Unless you are using well water, pretty much all municipal water systems must use some form of chlorination or they'd be too liable for people getting sick! Go talk to them, it's fun to tour their labs! Field trip time!

Smaller and more frequent water changes are actually a -better- thing, so yes, any plan like that is good. Just be sure to stick with those gravel cleanings and filter maintenance.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[audia4]

think i will them a call in that case to find out.

Thanks for all the advice waterdrop, it has been of great help!

Also did a water test of my tap water after the 24hours, and it made no difference to the nitrate reading, so is it safe to say there is no point of me leaving water to stand overnight?

 

[waterdrop]

If we could leave water overnight and find substances like nitrate(NO3) gone the next morning then we wouldn't have to perform the most common aquarium maintenance (the weekly water change!)

Unfortunately, that's not the case. Nitrate(NO3) dissolves into water (therefor nitrate is called the solute and water is called the solvent) and stays dissolved. Some solutes form different "species" of molecules when dissolved and this is the case for nitrate in water: When nitrate is dissolved in water, about 93% of it is in the NO3- (nitrate) ion and about 7% of it is in the HNO3 (nitric acid) form (this is why lots of nitrate can drop your pH.)

So, yes, gases like chlorine and CO2 can "gas off" from water, but a dissolved solid like nitrate does not do that.

~~waterdrop~~
(edit: spelling)

 

[audia4]

haha, ye i see what your saying, i guess i was quite naive asking that ealier question. although i was just wondering whether it was going to help lower the nitrates, not remove them entirely.

But anyway, thanks for the detailed replies, you have been great help, and I have learned a thing or two.

 

[snowball pleco]

no i dont put in the de-chlorinater in the water after i leave the water sitting out overnight.

 

[OldMan47]

I have not done any filter maintanance yet, as the flow is fine. Should i clean them out, maybe there is a lot of dusty or crap from the gravel in there being circulated?Also havent done any gravel vacs as i was told by an avid fish keeper to let the bacteria grow....

I find that filter maintenance and gravel vacs have no impact at all on my water chemistry or my bacterial colonies. In a filter other than an undergravel filter, almost no bacteria exist in the gravel so that is not an issue and the brownish filter stains are the bacterial colonies, not all that loose dirt in your filter. Even an immature filter could benefit from a gentle rinse to remove that loose dirt.

Since WD has been giving advice here, I will defer to him on most subjects. He has helped literally hundreds of people have success with their first new tank.

As far as using dechlorinator, sometimes called water conditioner, it works instantaneously or I would not be able to maintain my fish room at all. I start filling a 5 gallon bucket with temperature matched water and when I have an inch or two in the bottom of the bucket, I add in the dechlorinator (my own is called Prime because I find it cheapest to use). By the time the bucket is full, I simply carry it to the tank that I am changing water on and use my gravel vac hose to refill the tank. It is not at all a slow fill but the hose lets me guide the returning water so that it does not stir up the substrate much. As long as the water is temperature matched, I even will dump a second 5 gallon bucket of dechlorinated water into the first one as it drains into the tank and just keep filling. It lets me get through all 26 tanks in a weekend doing it that way. (Note to self: One day I must invest in an autonmmatic water change system)

 

[Javious]

About a month ago I upgraded from a 26 gal to a 60 gal tank and had terrible problems with cloudy/dusty water. I think the majority of my problem came from the new sand substrate, I had used black gravel in the smaller tank. Lots of water changes, letting the tank settle out and trying some Seachem Clarity all did not resolve my problem. Clarity is supposed to bind small particles together to allow the filter to catch them easier. One day I was reading my tap water conditioner bottle and found that it not only affects chlorine products but also other dissolved minerals. I always treat the tap water before adding it to the tank, but I wondered if the play sand substrate might be causing the problem. Not the sand suspended in the water, but minerals from the sand in the water. So I added enough conditioner for 50 gallons of water directly into the tank, right in front the filter output to help disperse it better. The next morning the water looked a lot better. Two days later I dosed the tank directly again and then a third time in 2 more days. That did the trick, I can now see clearly through the long dimension, 4 feet, of the tank.

If your water looks like it has a fog int, tiny particles suspended or milky it might be minerals and water conditioner might be the solution for you.

 

[waterdrop]

Interesting observation Javious, thanks for relating that, I've not heard an observation like that before. WD

 

[audia4]

Its sounds a lot like what im having trouble with javious, ive also got black gravel. and ye it does look like fog. i may give your idea a shot and then report back if it helps. just out of curiousity what water conditioner do you use javious?

on another point, ive read/heard a diatom filter run for a few hours can help to clear up clarity issues. Does anyone know how to get a hold of one in the UK?

 

[audia4]

does anyone actually use a diaton filter here in the UK?

 

[Aqua Tom]

I have not done any filter maintanance yet, as the flow is fine. Should i clean them out, maybe there is a lot of dusty or crap from the gravel in there being circulated?Also havent done any gravel vacs as i was told by an avid fish keeper to let the bacteria grow....

I find that filter maintenance and gravel vacs have no impact at all on my water chemistry or my bacterial colonies. In a filter other than an undergravel filter, almost no bacteria exist in the gravel so that is not an issue and the brownish filter stains are the bacterial colonies, not all that loose dirt in your filter. Even an immature filter could benefit from a gentle rinse to remove that loose dirt.

Since WD has been giving advice here, I will defer to him on most subjects. He has helped literally hundreds of people have success with their first new tank.

As far as using dechlorinator, sometimes called water conditioner, it works instantaneously or I would not be able to maintain my fish room at all. I start filling a 5 gallon bucket with temperature matched water and when I have an inch or two in the bottom of the bucket, I add in the dechlorinator (my own is called Prime because I find it cheapest to use). By the time the bucket is full, I simply carry it to the tank that I am changing water on and use my gravel vac hose to refill the tank. It is not at all a slow fill but the hose lets me guide the returning water so that it does not stir up the substrate much. As long as the water is temperature matched, I even will dump a second 5 gallon bucket of dechlorinated water into the first one as it drains into the tank and just keep filling. It lets me get through all 26 tanks in a weekend doing it that way. (Note to self: One day I must invest in an autonmmatic water change system)

TWENTY SIX TANKS?